Toronto's emergency operations centre now at level 3, its highest possible level

Cp24.com
March 18, 2020
Chris Fox

The city’s emergency operations centre is now operating at its highest possible level amid a COVID-19 outbreak that continues to worsen.

The emergency operations centre was opened last week at a level one activation but the city quickly escalated it to level two in order to staff it 24/7 and gain access to other resources.

On Tuesday night, Fire Chief Matthew Pegg confirmed on Twitter that the centre is now operating at a level 3 activation, which is the highest possible level.

He said that the move was automatically triggered by the province’s decision to declare a state of emergency.

It will result in the deployment of some additional resources into the centre, Pegg said, though at this point it is unclear what form those resources may take.

Pegg previously said that upwards of 50 people “from each and every city division and city agency” were working on the response to COVID-19.

“I don’t think anybody will notice anything in the context of people going about their lives and staying home and avoiding crowds and so on. I just think it means that from the standpoint of our emergency operations centre and the way it is staff that they will be at the highest level of engagement and that is what people would expect,” Mayor John Tory told CP24 on Wednesday morning. “I don’t think it is indicative of anything getting any worse.”

The city’s emergency operations centre has not previously operated at level three and Pegg said last week that the designation would ordinarily be reserved for natural disasters.